A growing number of companies have begun using call centers to handle interactions or communications between customers and potential customers by way of telephone. These call centers provide inbound services, for example, to handle queries from customers to customer service representatives (CSR), and outbound services for managing outbound telephone calls to potential customers for telemarketing and to existing customers for collections, or blended inbound and outbound services. The size of these call centers have increased with companies recognizing the competitive advantage provided by such call centers.
Call centers have also implemented other means of communicating and interacting with customers or potential customers such as E-mail and internet chat, and are sometimes referred to as contact centers. The phrase call center is referred to herein as covering the traditional telephone call center as well as contact centers using other means of communication.
A typical call center 10, FIG. 1, includes a number of different resources. A telephony/communications system 12 establishes the telephony or other type of communication over telephone lines or trunks 14 or over the internet 16 or other type of data network. The telephony/communication system 12 can include standard telephony devices, such as a private branch exchange (PBX), an automatic call distributor (ACD), an interactive voice response (IVR), an automated or predictive dialer, as well as other devices for establishing telephony communications over trunk lines 14. Another example of a telephony device is the Digital Communications Server (DCS) available from Davox Corporation of Westford, Mass. The telephony/communication system 12 can also include an e-mail or web server or other devices for establishing communications over the internet 16.
Agent workstations 18 are used by agents or operators to handle the inbound and/or outbound telephone calls or other communications. Each of the agent workstations 18 includes a data terminal 20, such as a PC, for receiving and transmitting data and an audio communications device, such as a headset 22, for receiving and transmitting voice communications. One of the agent workstations 18 can act as a supervisor workstation to be used by a supervisor who oversees the agents and activities in the call center 10.
A host system 24 stores information pertaining to the customer, potential customer, or other contacted party. The host system 24 typically includes one or more databases of customer or potential customer information, such as customer records including customer name and telephone number, account information, and the like.
A call center management system 26 monitors and manages the call center activities, resources and overall performance and provides a call center manager with call center statistics. The call center management system 26 typically includes one or more servers using a WINDOWS 95/98 or NT operating system or a UNIX-based operating system and including software for managing the call center. One example of call center management software is available from Davox Corporation under the name SMART MANAGEMENT CENTER® (or RESOURCE AND PERFORMANCE MANAGER™). The components or resources of the call center 10 are typically interconnected using a local area network (LAN) 28, such as an ethernet.
According to one example of outbound calling using the call center 10, the management system 26 downloads a data file from the host database 24 and converts it to one or more call tables containing call records. A call table is typically associated with a particular application. The numbers in the call table are dialed, either at the request of an agent or automatically, for example, using a predictive dialer. The telephony/communication system 12 monitors the dialing and when an answer is detected, the voice is connected to the headset 22 of an appropriate agent at an agent workstation 18, while the corresponding customer record is automatically sent to the data terminal 20 at the available agent workstation 18. The call center management system 26 monitors the characteristics and availability of the agents and determines which of the agents is appropriate to handle the calls. The agent can then enter additional data pertaining to the customer and can record the results of the call. This sequence of events continues until all of the calls in the list are made and is often referred to as an outbound call campaign.
According to one example of inbound call handling in the call center 10, when an inbound call is received over one of the trunk lines 14, the ACD within the telephony/communication system 12 connects the inbound call to an agent headset 22 of an appropriate available agent. If no agents are currently available, the inbound call may be placed into an ACD queue until an agent is available. The management system 26 can determine which agent is available and appropriate, for example, based upon the purpose of the call, the language being used, or other attributes. The management system 26 also searches for information pertaining to the calling party, retrieves that information from the host system 24, and transfers that information to the PC 20 at the workstation 18 of the available agent.
As the call center performs the inbound and outbound services, the call center management system 26 monitors the activities and resources, such as how many calls have been made, how long is the average agent talk time, what is the status of the queue or the agent, the number of contacts made by each agent, and the like. The management system 26 also provides a graphical user interface, sometimes referred to as a call center console, to display these call center statistics to a viewer (e.g. the call center manager or supervisor) and to allow interaction with the call center operations. Existing call center management software, however, is limited in its ability to interpret data and create information pertaining to the call center resources, to take actions in response to that information, and to group and display that information according to selected resources in the call center.
These call center consoles attempt to take call center data and present it to the call center manager in a manner that is easy to understand and interpret. Using these existing call center consoles, however, the call center manager must interpret the data provided and respond with one or more actions. The current console presents data in a visual format but does not provide an interpretive view. For example, a manager or supervisor can see how many calls have resulted in a successful contact for each agent but cannot see at a glance which agents are meeting their contact per hour goals and which are not. In other words, the supervisor has to look at each agent's statistics, interpret the information, and make a decision.
Existing call center management systems also are capable of quantifying call center data and presenting it as information, for example, in standard telemarketing reports. In the existing systems, however, these reports are built based on an established definition of how the information should be quantified and presented. Every call center is managed differently, and standard reports typically do not meet all of the needs of a particular call center.
Accordingly, a needs exists for an interactive call center management system that permits a call center manager to define an interpretive view of the call center data and apply it to the console displays. A system is needed in which managers can define their strategies and goals and use that information to dynamically change the console view, for example, by building and assigning strategies to call center resources, such as queues, campaigns, agents and devices.
The best of the current call center consoles, such as the SMART MANAGEMENT CENTER® available from Davox, attempt to automate some of the system's actions in response to system occurrences. One example includes software available from Davox under the name ALERT MANAGER™. The ALERT MANAGER™ software permits a call center manager to specify a threshold for performance and have the system take an action or notify the manager when that threshold is not being met. This and other such action management systems include a predefined group of call center statistics but do not permit the manager to customize either the type of measurement of the specific action or series of actions to take place. Although the systems are capable of taking an action without intervention, these actions are simple reactions to singular predefined events, and the user typically cannot modify the events or add new events.
Accordingly, what is needed is a management system that provides an action strategy instead of simply taking a predefined action in response to a predefined event. A need exists for a management system in which call center managers can define an action or series of actions that should occur in response to information learned by the system, for example, by building and assigning a series of actions to call center events such as goal attainment, system event occurrence or time of day.
Existing management systems are also limited in the ability to group information, for example, pertaining to the resources in the call center. The SMART MANAGEMENT CENTER® software available from Davox Corporation permits customers to use workgroups to group information about agents and application groups to group client information pertaining to an application. This system, however, uses predefined categories and does not permit call center managers to define how call center resources, other than agents, should be grouped. Each element in a call center has a relationship to a physical system, staffing model and business object. Existing call center management software does not allow these relationships to be defined.
Accordingly, a system is needed in which call center managers have the ability to define relationships, for example, by building and assigning relationships to call center resources, such as queues, campaigns, agents and devices. A need further exists for a management system that can be incorporated into an existing call center console such as the RESOURCE AND PERFORMANCE MANAGER™ available from Davox Corporation, to enhance it with an interpretive and relational view and to add the ability to define action strategies, resulting in an interactive system instead of a static console view.